Soto isn’t even halfway into his his 18th year, so he’s particularly youthful. He struggled to a .225/.332/.254 slash in 208 plate appearances in the Gulf Coast League, but did draw 27 walks against 26 plate appearances. Despite the tepid output, BA’s J.J. Cooper wrote recently (subscription link) that scouts were generally pleased with what he has shown initially.

12:00pm: Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com reports that Maitan will receive a $2.2MM signing bonus (Twitter link). That’s more than the Halos have in available 2017-18 international funds, so it indeed seems that they’ll be paying Maitan with their 2018-19 bonus pool.

11:45am: The Angels have agreed to a deal with infield prospect Kevin Maitan, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney (via Twitter). The former Braves prospect was declared a free agent by commissioner Rob Manfred following his office’s investigations into Atlanta’s circumvention of rules on the international free agent market and in the domestic amateur draft.

The addition of Maitan will be a jolt to an Angels farm system that has long rated as one of the game’s worst but has steadily improved in recent seasons. The 17-year-old Maitan didn’t perform well in his first professional season, hitting just .241/.290/.340 in 176 plate appearances between the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League and Appalachian League.

The switch-hitting Maitan was still considered by some to be one of the game’s top overall prospects and should slot in at or near the top of his new organization’s prospect rankings. It would be misleading, though, to suggest that Maitan’s struggles didn’t hamper his value to some extent; Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper, for instance, tweets that he’s spoken to several scouts who wouldn’t rank Maitan among the game’s 100 best prospects at this juncture.

The Angels picked up $1.21MM of international spending money in a recent trade with the Braves in which they agreed to take on the entirety of Jim Johnson’s remaining salary from Atlanta. That gave the Halos a total of $1.315MM with which to work on the international front. GM Billy Eppler said at the time that that money was earmarked for Shohei Ohtani, but it’s critical to note that for the former Braves prospects deemed to be free agents, teams are allowed to dip into next year’s bonus pool as well.

In other words, the Halos could very well have committed a significant portion of their 2018-19 international pool to Maitan while still reserving the $1.315MM sum (and any other funds they can acquire) for their pursuit of Ohtani.

Yeah but that just seems so strange. He’s only 17 and probably won’t be in the big leagues for awhile if he even makes it there. A little bit too early to be “worried” about a Possible good prospect. Besides, there are far more prospects who are better who are in the NL. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I’m sure Top 100 is close to 50/50 AL/NL.

He may not even stick with LAA. He’s so far away from the big leagues and could be traded later on. Signing him won’t have an immediate impact, and I’d say there’s a decent chance he may not impact LAA at all. Top prospects get traded.

They didn’t have that much left from 2017-2018 signing period, so they used about half of their pool for the 2018-2019 signing period. MLB is allowing teams to use the next signing period’s pool money to sign the Braves players that were made IFA again.

The $2.2 million is less than half of what he signed for with the Braves originally.

“it’s critical to note that for the former Braves prospects deemed to be free agents, teams are allowed to dip into next year’s bonus pool as well.”

“In other words, the Halos could very well have committed a significant portion of their 2018-19 international pool to Maitan while still reserving the $1.315MM sum (and any other funds they can acquire) for their pursuit of Ohtani.”

It’s right in the article…Royals are restricted to $300K yet spent $650k…the rules are different for the Braves IFA’s

The way it works in regards to the braves prospects is you can use either this years or next years pool money but not both. Since they spent more than they have it is next years and their 1.3 is intact.

Yanks may not value him as much as others. I by no means am saying he’s NOT a legit prospect, but keep in mind that not all evaporators felt he was as good as previously stated. Assuming the kid doesn’t have a team preference, I think Cash would’ve gone harder had he felt he was worth it.

I assume the Yanks will spread the love on a few other prospects.

Question…If the money in this years pool isn’t exhausted, does it carry over til next years pool?

Teams are allowed to use this year or next year’s international money to sign ex-Brave farmhands. The Angels may have used next year’s money here. Another alternative is that they have a deal in place for more international money for this year.

A .596 OPS is terrible. There’s no context that such a bad season shows anything good for the future. The reason to disregard the season is because 17 year olds don’t play in the Appalachian League. Teams will revert back to their original evaluation. That was clearly quite good.

He came in very overweight, played poorly with a bad attitude, showed poor plate discipline and instincts in the field. Maitan will not be in the top 50 prospects for 2018 according to both Longenhagen and Badler. Possibly not top 100.

Plenty of guys to spend it on. Of the top 30 international prospects, Maitan, Severino and Pena were ranked among the top 30. Even that being said, there are dozens of cases where a guy signed for $15-$200k ended up being a top prospect.

If the Yanks wanted I’m sure they could snatch up 3 or 4 of these guys. I mean Pena signed for $1 mil and Severino signed for $1.9 mil. No reason to think they can’t be had for the same or even less since they get to keep the Brave’s money.

Yanks, or other teams, may have felt it to be smarter to spread their money on less heralded guys, especially if they don’t value Maitan the same as the Braves did.

Not true. There’s Martinez as he’s already been mentioned with a couple of top 15 guys from this current signing period that have not signed yet in Raimfer Salinas and Antonio Cabello, both of whom have been tied to the Yankees. There’s still quite a bit of talent left, not to mention the rest of the Braves’ ex-prospects.

Very true, imindless. Since Dipoto’s Roberto Baldoquin (Cuba) $14m deal backfired, I think the perception of the Angel’s ability to scout international talent has been tainted. I’m hopeful that Maitan will mature and become a valuable asset to the organization. He’s still so young and his ceiling is unknown.

He will drop that far or further because he came in very overweight, had a bad attitude and work ethic, hit poorly with bad plate discipline, showed poor instincts in the field, and was just overall a disappointment. Regardless of his age, he showed no signs of being worth the $4.5 million or more the Braves paid him.

Now he gets another $2.2 million. For a kid that grew up very poor, that will either be a wake up call or he will implode under the weight of all that money at that age. For the Angel’s sake, I hope he rebounds and shows something.

The pool money can give them the flexibility to make this possible. Even if it is not directly used. If they miss out on Ohtani they can sign some guys to fill the holes that will be left when they are restricted in the 2019 period.

Teams often have most of their pool money allocated fro the following season. It’d be surprising if the Angels have $2.2 million of their $4.75 million left for next season. They either would have to reneg on commitments or trade for more of next year’s pool money starting in July. The good news is that the Braves should have plenty to trade.

In what sense? A team from the AL West and AL Central have won 2 of the last three World Series. Five WS runner-ups represented both of these divisions in the last 10 years…In the last 3 seasons the AL owns NL 492-408.

Lowtalker1 get a job and stop with your stupid negative comments. Every time I log on you are commenting on something you don’t have any clue of. You just like to hear yourself talk. You probably sit on the couch eating pizza your mom had delivered watching ESPN in between episodes of Andy Griffith show. So boring.

Glad he went to Angels of all teams I don’t think we will ever feel his loss at least right up front & in our face I would love for at least 1 of these guys wait and resign with the Braves they already got some money I would hope our minor league coaches would have at least 1 of them feeling to comfortable to leave

Still don’t see why he gets to keep the original money and sign somewhere else and get more. I can’t be the only one who see’s that as a broken system. brb purposefully signing illegally and then reporting it so I can double my paycheck.

If you don’t want to return the money to ATL that’s fine. I’m not saying that’s where it should go. But I think it should be stripped from the player in question as well. If they negotiated illegally they were just as much a part of it. Have the Braves money go to charity or something (so neither the Braves or the player get it back) and the player forced to re-sign as best he is able to.

Agreed. Players are incentivized to sign these shady contracts because even if they get caught they just get to sign a new one. Ignorance of the law doesn’t excuse the law. If these kids want to come to our country they should know the rules, and that’s not even taking into account the baseball side. Not really sure why Americans are forced into a draconian draft system while foreigners are allowed to choose their destiny. Get rid of the ridiculous international rules and institute a draft. Eliminate the players union as last I checked it’s illegal for unions to dictate terms of people they don’t represent. Monopoly laws should apply. The American has been taken out of America’s past time.

You expect an international kid to completely be in the know to how those deals were worked through the wood work? Not saying he is dumb, but to expect that he’s responsible also is a stretch to me. Good for him to keep the money. His hands weren’t caught in the cookie jar. Hopefully he works out with the Angels.

So it’s ok for them to receive millions of dollars but we can’t expect them to take the time to understand the rules of the contracts they are signing? If they can’t take the time to know what is and isn’t ok, or sign a handler and tell him to follow the rules at the very least, then he really doesn’t deserve millions.

Again I’m not suggesting a horrible punishment here. But why does his neglect net him 2 contracts? In what world does that make sense? I’m just suggesting he start from square 1 and renegotiate properly

What if the prospect lost a lot of value and his 500000 thousand dollar contract turns into a 50000 $ contract? You can’t punish them because the team cheated. And no, it’s not on the prospects to get a calculator out and add up all their signing teams contracts

More likely the kids didn’t have an agreement directly with the club at all. These kids have handlers and it was the handlers that worked with the Braves to collude as they did. The kids probably have no idea as to what was happening.

I can’t believe that the Angles haven’t strongly pursued Stanton. He wants to be in LA. Theirs Owners have the money to cover his contract. The money to cover the luxury tax and the money to cover his taxes. Plus, they have trade pieces for another top tiered pitcher. Some one lie Arrietta. Trout then Stanton, then Pujols. Wow! He’d like that!!!

What does this even mean? This article doesn’t say he had a bigger offer from a team in a city with worse weather; was that reported elsewhere? I’m surprised the Angels would pay him as much as they are after a .630 OPS season. I would be somewhat shocked if anyone else was offering much more.

Well that means Victor Julio Pablo Martinez is going to the Yankess then. Cashman must know that he must be the next Mike Trout or surely they would have gone after Maitan. He will make NYY World Series contenders for years and years to come.

Interesting… probably not quite Mike Trout on the Yankees, but when they have him Bryce Harper and Aaron Judge, this could get interesting… What will they do with Florial, Frazier, Hicks, Gardner, Ellsbury etc. Probably trade them for another ace like Scherzer or Stas or something